Not to pick on former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich when he's (sort of) down, but it looks he may have another ethical issue to explain in defending his (inactive) license to practice law. It appears that among items Blagojevich had stored in a storage facility were files from his practice days. When he failed to pay storage facility fees, the 18 boxes of files, photos, and videotapes were among the items auctioned off. The Northwestern University librarian who bought them says they include confidential attorney-client papers, reports the Associated Press. The Chicago Tribune notes that another auctioned item, a six-foot-tall Elvis statue, sold for $20,500.

08/26/2010

Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Alton T. Davis has been named the replacement for Justice Elizabeth A. Weaver, effective immediately. The announcement came at a press conference held at 12:20 p.m. today at Governor Granholm's press room in Lansing. Former Justice Weaver's resignation took effect at 11 a.m. today.

Michigan Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth Weaver is expected to announce her resignation at noon today from the Michigan Supreme Court. Governor Jennifer Granholm will be joining her at that time in a press conference and there is speculation that Justice Weaver's replacement may be named today as well.

The technology makes the tiniest windows of time entertaining, and potentially productive. But scientists point to an unanticipated side effect: when people keep their brains busy with digital input, they are forfeiting downtime that could allow them to better learn and remember information, or come up with new ideas.

The Washington Post says that Judge Royce Lamberth, whose opinion this week upended the Obama administration's rules on funding human embryonic stem cell research, has a "23-year history of confounding presidents of both political parties."

As head of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, he signed a May 2002 opinion that stated that the government misled the court that approves spying on terrorism suspects in the United States more than 75 times. And in a case brought by Native Americans over the Interior Department's failure to account for hundreds of millions of dollars in royalties and rents owed to Indian landowners, he held two secretaries of the Interior, from the Clinton and Bush administrations, in contempt of court, writing, "Our 'modern' Interior Department has time and again demonstrated that it is a dinosaur - the morally and culturally oblivious hand-me-down of a disgracefully racist and imperialist government that should have been buried a century ago." (He was ultimately removed from the case by an appeals court.)

08/25/2010

While working as a court-appointed attorney in juvenile and general division courts in Lucas, County, Ohio, Kristin Ann Stanlbush billed more than 3,451 hours in one calendar year.This would have required her to work almost 10 hours a day for 365 days.

Upon closer inspection, the courts realized Stanlbush billed more than 24 hours a day on three occasions, more than 20 hours a day on five occasions, and was regularly billing 14 to 19 hours a day. Now that's a long day at the office.

After months and months of frustration and futility in our appeal for urgent relief from the threat of Asian carp taking over the Great Lakes, Michigan finally gets some respect. The U.S. district court in Chicago has ordered evidentiary hearings on the issue on Wednesday, September 8 and Thursday, September 9, with a possible third day of hearings on Friday, September 10. All the Great Lakes states but Illinois are now on our side in calling for the closing of the canal and locks that give access to Lake Michigan.